Hard Times for Magic Underpants Inc.

In some minds, the so-called "Mormon moment" heralded at the start of 2008 has stopped short.

Just 10 months after the death of LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, who spent nearly 70 years burnishing his church's public image, goodwill toward Mormonism that culminated during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games seems to have faded in a haze of misunderstanding and outright hostility. Mean-spirited critiques of Mormonism during Mitt Romney's unsuccessful presidential campaign were followed by persistent news-media reports linking Latter-day Saints to the FLDS polygamous sect raided by Texas authorities.

Now, angry opponents of Proposition 8 are demonstrating at Mormon temples, accusing the church of being anti-gay.

When your biggest negatives are that people think you're pushy, rich, secretive, weird, and hell-bent on imposing your seemingly cultish way of life on them, the last thing you should do is use gobs of money to force your views on millions of others. It's not clear what the Mormons were thinking, but in the process, they may have made a few friends on the religious right -- friends who still think the Mormons are a cult, mind you (even the Mormon's evangelical "allies" have this to say about them: "Our theological differences with Mormonism are, frankly, unbridgeable")—but they've just convinced millions of other Americans that they're hateful heavy-handed bigots.